Unsheathing my machete from my pack, I start cutting a swath through the undergrowth and pushing our way through the forest interior. Rausch follows close behind, flashing his light ahead as a path is cleared. Arnold has scurried off ahead of us, scouting the unfamiliar terrain with the excited gusto of a bloodhound puppy.

Still blazing our trail, I crane my head back. “Keep your gun handy, okay?”

Rausch’s eyes widen. “Why? Did you hear something?”

“Snakes,” I explain. “We’re making a lot of racket and shuffling through a lot of potential nests. I want you to keep your piece handy in case I stir up a brood of moccasins.”

“Oh.”

I hear his holster unsnapping and the gun sliding into his hand. Although I have my own sidearm, not to mention the rifle slung over my back, I feel a lot more secure knowing Rausch has got the firepower already in hand to deal with any creepy-crawlies that we might come in contact with.

Granted, the peashooter wouldn’t do much good against a swarm of hornets if we stepped on one of their underground nests. It was a scenario far more likely to happen than stirring up a moccasin brood, but one we’d have to deal with when the time came. Right now, I am only concerned with threats we could actually do something about.

So, we press on. Within five minutes of trudging through the forest, something catches my eye that makes me glad we’d decided to keep searching. I stop at a sneaker I find lodged in a thick bed of mud. It’s small with pink butterflies stitched into the leather. Probably the girl’s. At least one of the children had come this way and the kid got one of her sneakers stuck in the freshly created mud from the afternoon storm.

Rausch lets out a low whistle as he peers over my shoulder for a better look. “Well, that’s good news anyway. Our first real sign of them.”

I nod. “The better news is that we haven’t seen any signs of violence yet. They don’t seem to be hurt. At least, not yet. But in this terrain, with only one shoe, it’s going to be a lot harder for Ellie to get around.”

“Which means, it’s more likely, they can’t have gotten too far from here, right?” The FWC Officer looks at me from over my shoulder. “Seems to me, they’d have to find a good place to make camp once it got dark and since the girl’s only got the one shoe, they probably didn’t get too far.”

I bend down, pulling the shoe from the mud with a slurp, and wipe it off with a towel I keep in my pack.

“Sounds reasonable.” For the first time since we set out to track the kids down, I have a little hope of this turning out to have a happy ending. The chances of us finding them unharmed has just improved and now that I know we’re on the right track, it’s time to break out the big guns.

I glance around a moment, then let out a low whistle. “Arnie? Where are ya, boy?”

A moment later, there’s a rustling of underbrush off to our right, then the black-masked visage of the one-eyed raccoon pokes out from a nearby palmetto bush and looks at me. I crouch down, reach into my pack, and pulled out Jake’s tee shirt his mom had given me. “You ready to help earn your keep, ya flea-bitten rascal?”

Raccoons don’t really wag their tails like dogs do, but in the dim light, I could almost swear he is as he scampers over to me and begins sniffing at the shirt.

“You don’t really expect him to bloodhound our missing children do you?” Rausch asks, scrunching his nose incredulously. “Raccoons have mediocre senses of smell at best. They’re not really known for their tracking skills.”

I grin back at him before handing the shirt over to Arnold. The little masked scamp runs the fabric over with his paws, back and forth, while sniffing and chittering excitedly away. He then drops the shirt in the mud and looks up at me expectantly. I hand him the shoe and he repeats the process. He spends a little more time on the sole of the sneakers than anything else; his paw pads running over every inch of the rubber with quick, furtive gestures. He then drops the shoe at my feet before leaping away in a northern direction.

“There’s no way he’s got their scent. Raccoons just can’t do that.”

My smile broadens as I pluck the shoe and shirt up and stuff them back in my backpack. “No, but here’s a little-known fact,” I reply, beginning to hack away at the vegetation again to follow my four-legged friend. “Their paws have so many sensory nerves that they practically ‘see’ with their hands. He knows what at least one of their tracks looks and feels like. If he finds the slightest impressions, he’ll follow them.” I turn back to look at the officer. “I’ve been training him almost since I found him to do this. He still doesn’t have it down pat, but he’s getting pretty good at it.”

Still skeptical, Rausch only shrugs and continues following me as we trudge deeper through the forest. Five minutes of near complete silence later, his radio squawks, making us both jump.

“3507. This is 981.”

Rausch looks at me. “It’s my captain.” He then squeezes his lapel mic and speaks into it. “Go ahead 981.”

“Jeff, we’ve been ordered to withdraw. We’re halting the search,” his captain says. His voice is strained. Obviously annoyed. “I need you and Dr. Barrows to come back to base.”

“What?” I ask. This is nuts. “Tell him we’re on their trail. We just need a little more time.”

Rausch repeats what I’ve just said which results in a good ten second pause on the other end.

“Doesn’t matter,” the captain finally responds. “This is a federal matter now. Between the missing kids and that carnage you found hanging in those trees, they’re ordering you two back ASAP.”

My wheels start turning. This isn’t good at all. The disappearance of the kids. The mutilated remains. Black government helicopters. It’s getting way too X-Files for my liking. Something just isn’t adding up.

“I don’t get it,” I say. “Surely even the Feds need all hands on deck. Why boot us out just when we’re getting close?”

“Not a clue.”

“I mean, it’s not like this isn’t a suspected kidnapping or anything. No indication of anything more than just some kids getting lost along the river.” I pause. “I’m assuming no UFOs or Bigfoot activity in the area?”

I say it as a joke, but he apparently thinks I’m serious and shakes his head.

“Then how do the Feds have any jurisdiction here? What’s their angle?”

“Rausch, do you copy?” The captain sounds like he’s running out of patience.

Rausch looks at me, his eyes questioning me without a word.

“Okay,” I say. “Tell him you’re on your way back. But that we’ve split up. You don’t know where I am or how to get in touch with me.”

“Your cell phone?”

I nod my understanding, then pull my phone from my pocket and drop it on the muddy soil. “Oops. I seem to have lost it in the woods.”

“Doc, I can’t lie to the Feds,” he says. “I’m sworn law enforcement. I’ve got to…”

“You’ve gotta do squat when they’ve got no jurisdiction here,” I interrupt. “Just give me a little time. That’s all I’m asking. Go back to camp. See what’s going on. If they have a legitimate reason for being out here, give me a call.”

He pointed to the phone on the ground. “But you ‘lost’ it, remember?”

I smile, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out another phone. I nod to the discarded one. “That’s my work phone. This is my personal one. I’ll text you in a few minutes to give you my number. Then you can reach me after you find out what the heck is going on.”

“Rausch? Are you listening to me?” The captain was now yelling into the radio.

I look at him, then back in the direction Arnold has just run. “We’re so close,” I say. “I can feel it. I just need a little more time.”

I’m not sure why I’m so unnerved by the Feds involvement in a case of three missing kids, but ever since seeing the choppers, I’m on edge. Granted, like most red-blooded Americans, I have a natural distrust of anything the government does. They rarely ever do anything well. Usually, they complicate matters to the point of chaos when they try. And I’ve never heard of a single incident where black helicopters represented good guys in white hats. The Will Smith movie notwithstanding, whenever Men in Black show up, it’s usually not a good thing.

Rausch stares at me, his hand hovering over his mic. I can feel my own heartbeat throb against my temples. Then, finally, “10-4,” he says. “I’m on my way back. But Barrows’ 10-20 is unknown to me. We split up a ways back and I can’t reach him on the phone.”

There’s a squelch of static, then the captain responds with a string of curses, only to realize he’s on an open channel, coughs nervously, then replies in a much calmer voice. “Copy that, 3507. Just come back to base camp as soon as you can.”

Rausch clicks his mic once in acknowledgement and nods to me. “You’ve got about an hour before I get back. Do what you can with it.”

I smile as I relight my cigar, then pull out the Glock from my shoulder holster, turn on the flashlight, and melt into the woods.

Next Chapter: Chapter 7